Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-25-22

As we have shared here, often, the birth of Jesus, His ministry and even His death and Resurrection, were not events that took place in a vacuum.

The ancestry of Mary and Joseph are delineated in the Gospels, generation by generation. Myriad prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus in so many aspects that would baffle statisticians. Hundreds of years before Bethlehem, the Book of Isaiah described things like the betrayals Jesus would suffer; even his physical appearance.

Whether from ignorance of Scripture or the Hallmarkization of our culture, a lot of us think that Mary looked up one evening and wondered “Who’s that angel?” Oh, she was surprised. She certainly was humbled. But… she knew Bible prophecy.

She knew that God had planned that a virgin would conceive in the City of David… that the Baby would be the Incarnation of God… that His purpose would be to serve as the Salvation of His people. His job description, we might say today.

And she knew – as she knew Bible prophecy so thoroughly; as did her betrothed, Joseph – that her baby Boy was destined to be the Servant King. And also the Man of Sorrows. She was humbled; she was full of joy; she knew there would be smiles, and tears. Perhaps the lot of all mothers. But Mary knew.

Her response to the angel, and with her cousin Elizabeth, has become known as The Magnificat. It is one of the Gospel’s tenderest and most profound passages, part of many liturgies and church music, including one of J S Bach’s foremost works.

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

For He hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden: For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For He that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is His Name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him, throughout all generations.

He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away.

He, remembering His mercy, hath helped his servant Israel: As He promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, forever.

Mary knew, because she knew prophecy, because an angel had visited her, that her beautiful, innocent baby Boy would do great miracles; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; indeed, save His people and be the Savior of humankind.

And she knew no less that her beautiful baby Boy would grow up to be despised and rejected; acquainted with grief; wounded, smitten, and whipped for the punishment sinners deserved; brought like a lamb to the slaughter; put to death with the wicked. Mary knew.

She rejoiced to be used of God in such a role. But how excruciating nonetheless to be a mother in all these moments. Mary knew.

So she prayed her Magnificat – “my soul doth magnify the Lord” – and she planned with Elizabeth the birth of their babies; and traveled with Joseph (again fulfilling prophecy) to the spot where Scripture said the Messiah would be born. Humankind’s Messiah. Her baby.

No room in the inn? We know the story. So humanity’s Savior was born in a manger. Once again, try to erase the greeting-card scenes from your mind. “Manger,” from the Latin “to eat,” is where the animals chomped their hay, and it is reasonable to assume that the Christ Child came into His world amidst a few bugs and some animal spittle. A little town, a crowded hotel, the backyard where cattle and sheep slept and ate. Mary thought she already knew “humble.”

But that evening, the rough manger piled with straw became a King-sized bed. Mary knew.

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Click Video Clip: Mary, Did You Know?

Mary, you are a little teenage girl. Can you believe that it was an angel who talked to you, or was that a mad dream?

You find yourself pregnant, even without a husband… even without a man. How can this be? And if so, what will your family say? What will Joseph, your intended, say? You wonder these things.

You know your scriptures. You know that God promised to send the Messiah in the form of a humble baby, born of a virgin. But… you? You know these things, but can you believe God has chosen you?

You are asking: “Me? Blessed among women? Of all generations?” You humbly fall to your knees and weep. Yes, you are blessed. But you know scripture well enough to know that your baby will grow to heal, and teach, and love, and… be rejected of men. Be persecuted, tortured, despised, and die. Why? Because he loved.

Mary, can you know?

I think you do know, because you know what the scriptures foretold; you heard from angels.

You know that when your baby’s ministry is finished – after you give birth in a lowly place, after your baby grows in wisdom, sinless, even does mighty miracles – you will be helpless as you watch him suffer and die. At the moment when a mother should protect her son, you will be unable.

On that day in the future, you will be in a small group at the foot of a cross, and maybe the only friend or family member who has remained loyal.

Because you are a mother. Because you listened to an angel. Because you know scripture. Mary, can you know that at that moment your baby Jesus will look down into your eyes and say, “Mother, behold your son”?

Can you know these things?

All these events – prophesied in great detail 700 years earlier in the Book of Isaiah, or looking forward to the end of days – Mary knew. And if she did not… she believed; she trusted; and she was obedient.

You and I should bring such gifts, ourselves – belief and trust and obedience – to the Babe in the manger.

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The amazing song Mary, Did You Know is here performed by its writer, Mark Lowry, and its composer Buddy Greene.

Click: Mary, Did You Know

12-8-14

This is awfully secular, but a lot of us have memories from television’s black-and-white days. On Thanksgiving afternoon, before, after, or in-between the turkey and four varieties of carbohydrate side dish meals, a local station would air Laurel and Hardy’s “March Of the Wooden Soldiers,” based on Victor Herbert’s “Babes in Toyland.” The tenuous connection to Christmas was trouble in Santa’s workshop, but it was enough to usher in the Christmas season.

Now, black and white movies are most obsolete. Laurel and Hardy have been banished, too. My friend Jean Shepherd’s classic “A Christmas Story” does make it annual appearance now, usually in a 24-hour cycle on TCM, but closer to Christmas, warning boys everywhere to be careful not to shoot their eye out. But. Thanksgiving is no longer the starting-line for the Christmas race.

After Hallowe’en, these day, stores start festooning aisles and windows with Christmas decorations and merchandise. Some stores before THAT. Observant chambers of commerce start decorating Main Streets with lights and messages while pedestrians underneath often still wear shorts and Ts.

You know the complaints, because you probably complain, as most of us do – and not all from a theological perspective, of course: everyone has internal Tackiness meters and Tawdry antibodies in our systems. I hope. It is all too early… too cheesy… too pushy… too commercial…

… and, of course, even atheists take note, very little about Jesus. And “He is the reason…” etc. Shop owners and greedy legal consultants can say that secularists should not be offended, but in truth merchants, window decorators, chambers of commerce, and many of our neighbors, could not care less about the advent of Jesus, the Incarnation of Jehovah, God-with-us, the Word made flesh, the Savior of humankind. But: Disney characters around a cartoon manger do not cut it, folks.

“Getting ready for Christmas,” it is argued. “All for the kids.” Heaven forbid. Never in the history of ideas has a civilization worked so hard to commemorate a holy event by straining so mightily to deny its holy significance.

Interestingly, “getting ready for Christmas” does not depend on commercial, sanitized fluff, and never did. God does not need our sophisticated understanding to become flesh and dwell among us. He did not, despite the announcement via angels, 2000 years ago. Nor did He, approximately 700 years before those events, when He prophesied through Isaiah the birth of the Savior.

A great teaching of Mark Driscoll laid out many of the prophesies, meanings, and fulfillments concerning Christ’s Incarnation – God becoming human and living amongst humankind:

Jesus will come from the line of Abraham. Prophecy: Genesis 12:3. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:1.

Jesus’ mother will be a virgin. Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:18–23.

Jesus will be a descendent of Isaac and Jacob. Prophecy: Genesis 17:19 and Numbers 24:17. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:2.

Jesus will be born in the town Bethlehem. Prophecy: Micah 5:2. Fulfilled: Luke 2:1–7.

Jesus will be called out of Egypt. Prophecy: Hosea 11:1. Fulfilled: Matthew 2:13–15.

Jesus will be a member of the tribe of Judah. Prophecy: Genesis 49:10. Fulfilled: Luke 3:33. 

Jesus will be from the lineage of King David. Prophecy: Jeremiah 23:5. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:6.

Jesus’ birth will be accompanied with great suffering and sorrow. Prophecy: Jeremiah 31:15. Fulfilled: Matthew 2:16.

Jesus will live a perfect life, die by crucifixion, resurrect from death, ascend into heaven, and sit at the right hand of God. Prophecies: Psalm 22:16; Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:10–11; Psalm 68:18; Psalm 110:1. Fulfilled: 1 Peter 2:21–22; Luke 23:33; Acts 2:25–32; Acts 1:9; Hebrews 1:3.

Many Old Testament writings prophesy the coming of the Messiah and His birth. All without snow bunnies and frosty snowmen. No electric lights, no cartoon characters, no commercial jingles. For those who have not read Isaiah (especially) 52-53, many of its themes and words are familiar anyway through the citations of Christ, St Paul, the Book of Revelation, the libretto of Handel’s “Messiah,” which was not a poetic paraphrase but the actual words from the Bible.

God let the world know Christmas was coming. Shame on us: unlike the shepherds in Bethlehem’s hills, we KNOW the tremendous spiritual significance of this humble birth that was also the most life-changing moment in history.

He is coming. He was coming. He died and rose. He will come. He rises every day. “If He be lifted up…” We lift Him up. We are crucified with Christ. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He sits at the right hand of the Father. He comes again with glory. He is forever Mary’s son, the Babe in the manger.

The Resurrection is as real – and is as fresh – as the Incarnation, the birth of the Holy One. They are new every day, or should be to us, and renewable as sources of Truth and Strength and Life.

Actually, Christians could, and perhaps should once in awhile, think of the Easter message on Christmas Day, and celebrate the advent of our Lord, Jesus’s birth and Incarnation, on Easter Sunday.

It is the same Message; He is the same Savior. We could even exchange gifts at random times. After all, the Father’s Gift to a lost humanity was not meant for one day, one season, or one people, or one time.

For ever and for ever, amen: Jesus, the Gift that keeps on giving.

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A relatively new song that has become a commercial standard but also a sacred favorite, sure to find a hymnbook home is “Mary, Did You Know?” by Mark Lowery (lyrics) and Buddy Greene (music). Sung here by the Christ Church Choir to images from “The Passion of the Christ,” all reflecting our message that what was, is; and what is, was, in the providence of God.

Click: Mary, Did You Know?

6-2-14

Schools, public schools anyway, these days are de-emphasizing the standards of the past, the values of our culture, the traditionally cherished aspects of our American heritage. Progressives do it; conservatives decry it; and the vast center of society is populated by folks who largely are intimidated, confused, defensive… or guiltily change their views about once-cherished “foundational” beliefs.

People try to be open-minded, and are frequently made to feel at fault if they are not sufficiently “compassionate.” Or they are branded as racists or bigots when such feelings had never been part of their thoughts. Or they feel forced to confront, and accept, all forms of social deviancies or political abnormalities that, privately, are anathema to that Great Middle of every culture.

Sometimes, one’s mind can be so open that one’s brains fall out.

Ours is a society that is experiencing relatively sudden, and seismic, changes to manners, morals, and traditional, foundational beliefs. Throughout history such philosophical dislocations are usually signs of cultures in decline. Decadence comes to all civilizations; it is merely a matter of when… not how.

No matter how much a society thinks it has discovered new truths that applied to all previous societies but not them – in matters of morality, public virtue, family structure, respect for authority, encouragement of spiritual values – it is a certain template that one civilization’s moral “liberation” is coldly recognized, after its inevitable fall, by future generations, as common decadence.

I began by criticizing public schools, but that was to note that such institutions merely codify what the society believes. Our children would not have lost their moorings if we had not loosed the ropes to the mother ships. And, with the kids, if it were not schoolbooks – let’s say we turn to home-schooling – they see the rotten movies from Hollywood. If not there, it’s television; if not there, the musical culture that is everywhere; if not there, the advertising in magazines; if not there, the displays in shops at the mall; if not there, the conversations they overhear on the street, and the drugs they will be offered; if not there, the unavoidable trash on the internet; if not there, the corruption of politicians and execrable news stories; if not there, the dictates of bureaucrats and decisions of judges.

And so forth. With such a blueprint of shame, we can scarcely blame children who go astray. Rather we should pity them, and rescue them.

And, by the way, note that all the attacks I have just listed are self-inflicted. Our Christian culture has foreign enemies, but we can only be defeated from within. And… it is happening.

The first rescue attempt, if we wake up some Monday morning with cleansed hearts, stiffened spines, and firm resolution, would be to reform the rotten culture that we as adults serve up to our children. It is our creation, and our parents’ – the “finest generation”? – because the earlier challenges of society were routine problems of human nature… until our contemporary downward spiral began. Seldom, once again looking at the sweep of human history, seldom has a culture disintegrated so quickly as ours.

It is as if society is playing on a virtual football field… but in this 21st-century game of life, there are no boundaries on either side of the field; no yardline-markers; no goal posts – because we no longer have goals, and we deride competitiveness – and no rule books, referees, or time-limits.

The virtual “game of life” in Western culture sees us scurrying around, making and breaking rules, committing infractions and ignoring penalties, dismissing the concept of teammates, craving the approval of the crowd, hogging the ball or throwing it away carelessly, and believing that we have invented the greatest game in the world.

If this analogy is apt, then we must go at least one step further, and consider that the Western Church, the Church in America, has failed even more so. It had been the foundation of our civilization; the builders’ plan of our democratic republic, the American Experiment. And, in stark truth, it is not the Church itself (in biblical parlance) that has failed: for the Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord.

The American Church has not failed. But its leaders have.

Like the chaotic football game I described, significant segments of the church today are aimless, self-centered, denying rules and traditions, inventing playbooks as they go along, discouraging the belief in goals or individual progress, focusing on ticket sales and the roars of the crowd, and declaring that there are no such things as rules, infractions, or penalties.

It is an ugly game – not, of course, a game at all. The Church in America, the American establishment, and too many families, are proving the adage that when you believe in everything (that is, what is pleasing and convenient for the individual, at any moment)… YOU BELIEVE IN NOTHING.

Will we wake up that theoretical Monday morning with clear heads and restored hearts? My guess is no, but there are always surprises. On a societal level, masses in Europe seem to be awakening to the attacks on Western heritage, and asserting borders, language, and culture in their voting booths. On the spiritual front, I am heartened by the explosive growth in Christian belief, both evangelical and Pentecostal, south of the Equator. And, more, that Africa and South America are sending many missionaries to Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the US — lands these new believers see as “mission fields” needing to hear the gospel.

Our playing-fields might again paint yardline markers, and erect goal posts, yet. Let us dream. Let us work. Let us pray.

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The way things are now, do you ever feel that you don’t belong? “The Sojourner’s Song” opens with, “It’s not home, Where men sell their souls And the taste of power is sweet. Where wrong is right, And neighbors fight, While the hungry are dying in the street. Where kids are abused, And women are used, And the weak are crushed by the strong. Nations gone mad; Jesus is sad; And I don’t belong…” This short music vid from a church service contains a few more sobering words… and then glorious hopeful ones. Watch:

Click: I Don’t Belong (Sojourner’s Song)

12-17-12

Like a recurring nightmare, we hear once more of carnage and senseless violence, a bizarre attack and unanswerable questions; and a school yet again is the setting. A lone perpetrator, but a million mysteries. Worse than only hearing the news, we see these days the anguish and fear, the confusion and panic; we see distraught children, and we see the tears on the cheeks of mothers.

Before those tears dried, there were calls from some quarters to change laws and outlaw guns. But on the same day a school in China was invaded, children injured at the hands of a knife-wielding maniac. Arsonists have, throughout history, claimed the lives of men, women… and children. Innocents. History’s pages are, in some ways, chronicles of the slaughter of innocents.

Would that we had the power to outlaw hatred and evil, not just guns and knives. Then we might be spared seeing mothers’ tears… and mothers themselves might be spared the constant fears, and all-too-common realities, that continuously, cruelly plague them as protectors of their precious children.

Mothers’ tears must burn like acid. I write as a man, a father, who cannot imagine that special maternal bond. We grieve for mothers as well as their lost children in these nightmarish situations. What I have been slowly comprehending, as time goes on, is the news footage of events around the world, seemingly different, is more and more alike to me. Mideast terrorism, wars in Afghanistan, genocide in Africa, religious persecution everywhere, and random attacks in our own neighborhoods: I used to listen to statistics, see the weapons, read the demands or justifications, the “claims of credit” of armies and groups. They all become as white noise. Now I only see, more and more, the tears on the cheeks of grieving mothers.

Are the tears of a Palestinian mother any less sacred, after a missile strike, than the tears of an Israeli mother after a bus bombing? An Afghan mother whose village has changed “sides” every week for months – are her tears less precious when one faction or other patrols her streets? A Christian mother in Pakistan loses her child to Muslim zealots; a mother from an African tribe loses all her children when a rival tribe sweeps her village; mothers all over the globe lose their daughters to traffickers and slave masters – do we harvest those tears to weigh and measure them… against what? The humble teardrop is a leveling agent.

There was one mother in history who shed such tears, and in fact witnessed almost all these varieties of separate, horrible atrocities happen to her son. She experienced grief a hundredfold, for her son was persecuted, taken from her, framed, tortured, abandoned by almost everybody except her, and murdered. She witnessed it all. The woman who cried those tears was Mary. It is a risky thing to attempt to quantify grief, but hers was unique because she KNEW these things would happen to her son – and to her – 33 years in advance.

Mary was chosen to be the one who would fulfill prophecy, a virgin who would bear the Incarnate God, sent to humankind to assume our sins and suffer the punishment we deserve. Mary knew these Old Testament prophecies, and she listened to the angels who visited her. When she in turn visited her cousin (who was pregnant with John the Baptizer), Mary spoke the classic “Magnificat”:

My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Because He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation unto generations to them that fear Him. He has showed might in His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. …

Christians remember Mary’s prayer in the Advent season. We remember the promises of God, knowing they are blessings. We meditate upon the ways of God, as Mary ultimately had to. And we are confronted by the obscene vagaries of life, as Sandy Hook mothers must.

There is sin in the world. A loving God gave us free will, desiring that we experience life. He did not create us as angelic robots. Such beings cannot know sorrow nor joy. Redemption and salvation cannot be experienced by beings who need them not. No angel could ever sing “Amazing Grace” with tears of joy streaming down the cheeks.

But with life, in all its fullness, come the other tears, to which we return in sadness; and, can we all agree, in confusion and bitterness and at times unspeakable grief. There is no escaping it. It is human nature to feel these emotions, even when we trust God fully. In our seasons of pain we can try to understand human nature, and sometimes hear people apologize for it. But our attempts to understand are futile.

In that futility – beyond the fundamental proposition that it is a sinful nature – we must recognize on the other hand that God’s antidotes are easy to understand. He knows our sorrows, He understands our weaknesses, He feels our pain, He identifies with our losses, He has sent the Holy Comforter on whom we can call, He offers us peace that passes understanding.

Let us pray that weeping mothers and grieving families find that peace, and draw closer to, not farther from, God at these times. To lose faith, after losing a child, would intensify the unbearable misery of those who suffer.

It has long been warned that if God were removed, so to speak, from America’s classrooms, that trouble, danger, and evil would fill the void. This week one Adam Lanza entered a school to fill that vacuum. And all the mothers’ tears alone cannot wash away the horror.

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Mary cried tears of joy and tears of grief, as the mother of Jesus. May the timing of the Sandy Hook school massacre in the Advent season find some little connection as we contemplate the tears of mothers. The beautiful and profound new Christmas song “Mary Did You Know” is coupled with images of Mary and her Son. They are moments of birth and joy, pride and love, loss and death, and are from the movie “Passion of the Christ.” As is well known, these are difficult images to behold, so this is a Warning to Viewers; yet the scenes correctly portray the grief of one mother who witnessed, not just learned about, the massacre of her Son.

Click: Mary, Did You Know

I have had the privilege recently of reviewing the manuscript of a novel that might be (ought to be) published in the near future. I won’t give away the ending (or the beginning) (or the middle) (or the title) (or the characters) (or the message)…

… but I’d love to give away one of the subtexts, which is to beware of organized religion.

Speaking for myself, I tend to distrust anything organized, but that’s another matter. Now the world, which looks for any stick with which to beat Christianity, invariably points to religious wars as pro forma warning-labels against spirituality. In truth, however, most “religious” wars have probably been waged using religion only as an excuse.

Moreover, the serious attacks, excesses and atrocities committed in the name of Jesus… do not mean that Jesus would commit them. The world too often forgets that Jesus is the standard, True and Holy. When people scurry around, constructing and construing, blaming and naming, if they fall short of that Standard they dishonor themselves more than they dishonor the Savior.

Before the “amens” roll, it is good to recognize that Christians, also, forget this fact too often. The sad truth — the more important deal than wars and doctrinal arguments (although doctrine is important) — is that the church often fails its mission in direct proportion to the extent it is “organized” religion. Youth pastors who serve (Barna Research says) an average of only 1.5 years — what heartache must that represent? Churches that don’t preach the whole Word. Children abused by priests. Pastors involved in sexual scandals. Judgmentalism. “Open-Mindedness” so open that theologians’ brains fall out. Politics, bureaucracy, and pride on church boards and committees. Is this the church Jesus wanted? — the Bride of Christ awaiting His return?

“What sort of music accompanies this heavy message?” Well, it’s the same message, but a more light-hearted delivery. Hilarious, in fact. But the chorus that Buddy Greene returns to in this living-room get-together is the message for this week, and has been for 2000 years: “Jesus — That’s All!”

You can beware — that is, be wary — of organized religion’s pitfalls by keeping this song in your mental iPod!

Click:  Denomination Blues